Quote:
Originally Posted by cutta
Here's some food for thought for those concerned about the safety of stock cars on 9inch tires.
There is currently a new outlaw power adder class that is receiving tons of popularity called Outlaw 8.5. These cars run on 26x8.5 slicks and run well over a 140mph in the 1/8th with over 1500hp. To my surprise, I've yet to here of any catastrophic wrecks or incidents due to the small tire. Most stock cars down make anywhere near 1500HP and if these style cars with power adders can get safely down the track, one could reason that stock cars could and should be able do the same in a more safe manner since stockers are allowed a better slick than a 26x8.5. Yes I know I have no stake in the argument, but tire technology is light years from where it used to be and are much more safe than people realize.
10.5inch slicks have been well over 200mph
12inch slicks have been well over 240mph
there's plenty of room left before any stock car reaches the 9inch slicks safety threshold in my opinion.
|
I've been watching the small tire cars for years. The rate of crashes compared to Stock Eliminator is astounding.
A lot of things appear safe, when everything goes well. The problem with racing is that fairly often, everything doesn't go well. just because you can get away with something for a while, doesn't mean it is relatively safe, nor does it mean that it is a good idea. The law of averages WILL eventually catch up to you, and the result usually is not pretty. I'd prefer not to be the one taken along for the ride when it catches up with whoever happens to be the next victim. I figure it'd cost well over $50K to replace any car we race, if we did all the work ourselves, closer to $100K if we farmed it out. The drivers are all married with families, those are a little more difficult to replace.
If we wanted to be racing the small tire outlaw classes, we'd build small tire outlaw cars. There's a reason we race Stock and Super Stock.